Blood Ties (40 page)

Bramble turned to look back up the channel they had come down — nothing but reeds and the faint tip of another island. As she looked, a boy came down to the edge of that island and leaped into one of the small boats, crying aloud in a rhythmic shout. He pushed off from the land and began to pole toward them. He was followed, in single file, by huge big-horned gray cattle who stolidly walked into the water and began to swim, only their heads and horns showing. Astonished, Bramble watched as the boy arrived at the closer island, beached his boat and then led the phlegmatic file of cattle up into a yard.

“There is grazing over there,” Eel said, laughing at her expression. “Come away from the mosquitoes. Come inside.”

Underneath the drumming of the frogs was another, nastier thrumming: thousands of mosquitoes. She slapped a few away without being bitten and stepped up out of the boat onto a platform outside one of the long buildings.

“My horses?” she said.

Eel shouted back to one of the men in the boat and he waved in acknowledgment. “Pike will look after them,” he said. “Come.”

He led her into a dim, receding tunnel of reeds. At intervals, the huge bundles of reeds supported the roof, arching high overhead. Nearby, a lamp picked up the color of the reeds and gave it back again, so they were bathed in golden light, slightly hazy with reed dust, and smelling sweetly of the lamp’s scented oil. Roses, she thought, and musk.

It was the most alien place she had ever encountered. The great curved ceiling made her feel small, which she wasn’t sure she liked. And yet . . . how peaceful it seemed, how warm and welcoming, and alive. She saw more of Eel’s people, all men, wearing little felt caps with side flaps to cover their ears, beautifully embroidered in patterns of flowers and plants. They were dressed in loose cream shirts, some over trews, some just over loincloths. They looked at her curiously, and she wondered what they saw. Someone of the old blood? Kin? Or just an outsider, and not to be trusted, like all outsiders?

A young man came in with only a loincloth on. He smiled brilliantly at her, then turned away to put on a long shirt.

Eel smiled with relief. “This is Salamander. He is better at your language than I. He lived with the ferry people for a while.”

“I thought I was in love with the blacksmith’s daughter,” Salamander explained, with practiced charm.

One of the other men made a quick comment and the group chuckled.

Salamander threw up a hand in acknowledgment. “Yes, yes, I was very stupid and she wasn’t that good-looking, I know.” He leaned toward Bramble and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “She
was,
actually, but what a shrew! Complaining all day and all night — not about me,” he added hastily, seeing the amusement in Bramble’s face. “At least,” he winked, “not at night.”

He seemed so young and was so transparently trying to impress her that she laughed.

“Come, come,” Eel said. “It is time to do what you came for.”

The three of them walked down the long, dim room, between two lines of rugs that were set out against the wall. Eel carried a lamp, so that as they passed, the colors in the rugs leaped into life and then fell back into darkness again. Some of the dye they had used Bramble recognized: the orange of onion skins, deep pink of rose madder, tan of yarrow, yellow of clematis. But there were deep blues as well, and a pale green like the sky just before dawn, and a deep yellow like the sun. Beautiful. Each one of them was beautiful in its own way, alive with images of birds in flight, of vines and water lilies, and the patterns of reeds.

Salamander saw her looking at them. “The weaving gives work to the people who do not have cattle. They must do something to live.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“Yes?” He looked surprised, then nodded. “They are very old, those designs. But weaving is for the worthless. And for women.”

His tone indicated that the two were the same. Bramble wondered wryly if all the people of the old blood had felt like that about women. The people in the Wind Cities, who resembled Travelers, also thought poorly of women, it was said. Property. Cattle. So much for an ancient paradise.

They came to the end of the room, into another pool of lamplight. A woman and a man were sitting there, side by side, not looking at each other.

Eel indicated the man. “Our steersman,” he said. “And this is the listener.”

The steersman was a tall, craggy-faced man with hard dark eyes surrounded, incongruously, with laugh lines. He was dressed like the other men, in cream shirt, felt waistcoat, and cap. He had tucked the side flaps of the cap up behind his ears. He was impressive and impassive. But Bramble’s attention was drawn to the woman. She was young, perhaps younger than Bramble, and as ugly as anyone Bramble had ever seen who was not actually maimed. It was not an ugliness of deformity; it just seemed that her features didn’t belong together on the same face, that her big nose was stuck on, her eyes were not quite level, her mouth went a little awry, and her ears were far too large for her head. And yet, her eyes were merry, and she smiled at Bramble and Salamander and Eel as though life was always joyful.

Bramble smiled back involuntarily, a guileless, warm smile, the kind of smile she reserved for Maryrose.

Eel handed over the letter from Sorn to the steersman. He glanced at it, then gave it back to Salamander, who read it aloud in the Lake language.

The steersman’s head went back at one point and he hissed through his teeth. The mention of fire, Bramble thought. The steersman turned and spoke to the listener.

Salamander translated quietly into Bramble’s ear. “What does the Lake say?”

“The message, and the messenger, can be trusted.” The listener spoke in Bramble’s tongue.

The steersman looked hard at Bramble, and then nodded.

“It will be soon,” Bramble said. “He’s calling in all his resources.”

They nodded.

“Our thanks,” the steersman said. “You are our guest.”

He gestured to Eel to take her away, but the listener held up a hand.

“Wait.” She spoke directly to Bramble, the mismatched eyes steady and serious. “You are going to the Well of Secrets?”

Bramble nodded.

Part of her felt that she should have been surprised that the listener knew it, but she was slowly realizing that that part had come from Acton’s people. Her Traveler blood understood that this woman was connected to the gods. And then she bit back a smile, because the thought reminded her so much of the old ballads her grandfather had liked to sing.

The listener smiled as if in response to Bramble’s musing. “We are all in a story now, but what the ending may be, no one knows. Not even the Lake.” The men looked worried. “You
must
go to the Well of Secrets, and you must go tomorrow.”

Bramble nodded, but a little wearily. She had been looking forward to at least a couple of days’ rest and the opportunity to explore this strange world of reeds. “Tomorrow,” she said.

“Sleep well. The Lake rocks you in her bosom,” the listener said.

The steersman nodded at her and Bramble, Eel and Salamander turned to walk back to the other end of the house, where there was food set out, and a kind of wine she’d never tasted before . . . and more men and more lamps.

“Only men?” she asked Salamander when they had settled down on a rug to begin their meal.

“Would you prefer to eat with the women?” he said anxiously. “Their food is not so good. But I will take you across to their house if you wish.”

She shook her head, suddenly exhausted. “No. I just want to have something to eat and then go to sleep.”

“We have a house for you alone to sleep in.” He was proud of himself. “I told them that the town dwellers like to sleep alone.”

It seemed like a great boon to Bramble, to lie down alone in safety and peace. “Thank you,” she said sincerely. “Thank you very much.”

Exhaustion swept over her as she sat on the rug with Eel and Salamander and ate from a common dish of braised kid and flat bread. It was good food, warm and fragrant, but it was strange, with spices she wasn’t used to turning the familiar taste of goat into something alien. The golden glow, the voices of men all around, strange men at that, combined to make her uneasy.

She had never been in a room with
only
men before, except for cleaning tack with a couple of the grooms who brought mares to Gorham’s. But that was different, on home turf. And there were only a couple of grooms at a time. As the meal went on, the house filled with more and more men, all looking, and even smelling, strange, and with the dark hair and eyes which were so rare elsewhere. Although she knew she was perfectly safe, she was also tense, unable to read the faces of the men, who talked and laughed and shouted as the wine went around, but whose eyes studied her, openly, with deep and serious interest.

She wished that she had gone to the women’s house after all. She was too alone here. When Salamander touched her on the shoulder, she jumped, and was ashamed of herself.

He smiled at her. “Come on, now,” he said soothingly, as to a child. She flushed. “I’ll take you to your house.”

That meant another trip in a smaller boat, with Salamander standing in the stern to pole it along. There were clouds, but the moon was up, half full, and wind raced the clouds across its face, sending flickers of silver across the waves, like fish leaping, over and over again. The Lake seemed alive with movement, even in the channels between the islands: a place that seethed with life.

She could hear the cattle and goats, smell the smudge fires they lit to keep the mosquitoes away from the herds, hear the whine of the mosquitoes themselves, the voices of women as they passed smaller houses, murmuring to children, singing lullabies, scolding. A child’s cry of protest rose up into the night and sent goose bumps down her back. Then the mother’s voice came, soothing, gentling, finally speaking firmly. The mother said the same thing several times, and then they were out of earshot.

“What did she say?” Bramble asked.

“‘Listen to the Lake, she will hear you,’” Salamander said. “It is what mothers say here when their children are complaining and they’ve heard enough. Listen to the Lake. It means, if you are quiet, so that you can hear the Lake lapping under the house, then the Lake may grant your desires.” He grinned. “But it really means ‘No.’”

She smiled back. “Does the Lake never give a child what it wishes?”

He nodded. “Oh, yes, often. A lost toy floats back, the child catches a fine fish . . . many things. The Lake loves children and cares for them.”

“And adults?”

This time, his smile was rueful. “The Lake will give an adult what he, or she, desires, but only once in a lifetime, so you have to be very sure of what you ask for. Some people go to their graves never having asked, for fear of getting it wrong and wasting it. Others ask too soon for things which are worthless and must live the rest of their lives with that mistake. Like me.”

She looked at him questioningly.

He shrugged, his mouth wry. “I asked for the daughter of the blacksmith in the town. Well, I got her!” And then, irrepressibly, he threw back his head and laughed.

Bramble had to laugh too, although she wondered how much hurt hid behind his laughter, and how much the laughter of the other men had pushed him into making a mockery of himself. He needed to forget about it and find some way of proving himself to them so that they would stop laughing. She sobered. No doubt Thegan would give him plenty of opportunity.

“‘She gives us all we need and requires obedience in return,’” Salamander said, clearly quoting.

Bramble raised her eyebrows. “What if She doesn’t get obedience?”

“She takes what is her due, either in life or through death. Only a fool disobeys the Lake. They say the fish pick your bones very clean, but I’d rather have my body burned, as it should be. After a peaceful death from old age.”

So much for the Lake’s universal benevolence. Perhaps it was just as well. She would need to be ruthless to protect Her people from Thegan. Salamander brought the boat smoothly to moor against a small reed house, barely bigger than a room.

“Your sleeping house,” he said. “Sleep well. Listen to the Lake and she will soothe you. Who knows? She may speak to you.”

“I’ll listen. Goodnight, and thank you.”

Her packs were already inside, on reed mats, and there was a thick rug, which was clearly the sleeping place. Salamander had not left her a light, but the sliding shutters were pushed back from the windows and the fitful moonlight showed enough to let her find the chamber pot and use it, and then retrieve and curl up under her favorite blanket, with a bag as pillow. The autumn night was cool and she was glad of the blanket. She wondered where the horses were, but she had seen enough of the way Eel’s men handled them to be sure they would be fine. She watched the moonlight and listened to the Lake, but all she heard was the low sound of water lapping at the stilts of the house until she slept.

She dreamed that Maryrose’s voice called to her to get up. She stood up and went to the window where the voice had come from. Even as she walked, she knew it was a dream, because outside the window shone a full moon, where it had been only a half-moon when she went to bed. And the Lake water lapped at the sides of her hut, higher than before, as though it were spring and the Lake had risen with the melting snow. A warm, light breeze fanned her face.

Outside, she couldn’t see any of the huts or the islands she and Salamander had poled through that night. Only the Lake, stretching endlessly in the moonlight, the waters shining silver so brightly it hurt her eyes.

Maryrose’s voice came again.

“Will you help me?”

She didn’t sound distressed, but calm, gentle, with even tones. But underneath the familiar, beloved voice was something else, another note that resonated with Maryrose’s voice as the wind played across waves. Even in the dream, Bramble knew it was the Lake talking. But whether it was the real Lake or just her own dreaming of it, brought on by the strangeness of the place and Salamander’s tales, she didn’t know.